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MAKING THE TEAM: A GUIDE FOR MANAGERS

5th edition

Chapter 2—Performance and Productivity:

Team Performance Criteria and Threats to Productivity
Multiple Choice Questions

By Leigh L. Thompson Kellogg

School of Management
Northwestern University

Copyright © 2014 Pearson Education Inc.

 2

MULTIPLE-CHOICE QUESTIONS – CHAPTER 2

1. Teams ideally need a supportive organizational context – one that recognizes and
welcomes their existence, and responds to their requests for information, resources, and
action as well as legitimizes the team’s task. Of the following, which is a component of
team design?
a. Organizational reporting relationships
b. Functional units
c. The leadership style within the team
d. The reward system
(c; p. 24; Moderate; Concept Q)

2. The organizational context, team design, and team culture are three important
aspects that affect the ultimate performance of a team. Which of these three aspects
does a leader have the most control over?
a. The organizational context
b. Team design
c. Team culture
d. All three about equally
(b; p.24-25; Moderate; Concept Q; Communication abilities)

3. Team culture refers to the:

a. personality of a team.
b. ethnic origin of the team members.
c. extent to which team members are polite and respectful to one another.
d. geographical location of the
team. (a; p.25; Easy; Concept Q)

4. Goal contagion is a form of norm setting in which people adopt a goal held by others.
Goal contagion is more likely in what circumstance?
a. When the team desires or admires a goal held by a competing team
b. Between people in the same work group or team
c. Adopted when a team member wishes to differentiate themselves from the group
d. A person feels threatened by other members of the team to adopt a certain goal.
(b; p. 25; Challenging; Concept Q; Communication abilities)

5. A team norm is best described as:

a. the personality of the team.
b. a generally agreed upon set of rules that guides the behavior of team members.
c. a goal held by the group that is adopted by a newcomer.
d. the normal number of people to be on a given team.
(b; p.25; Easy; Concept Q)

Copyright © 2014 Pearson Education Inc.

 3

6. In regards to expertise, critical skills for team members include all of the following
EXCEPT:
a. conflict resolution.
b. collaborative problem solving.
c. a large network of influential company contacts.
d. a strong ability to communicate effectively.
(c; p. 26; Easy; Concept Q)

7. A number of factors must be in place for a team to perform well. All of the following are
considered essential for team effectiveness EXCEPT the:
a. knowledge and skill regarding the team task.
b. motivation to accomplish the goals of the team.
c. ability to identify the different personality styles of team members.
d. ability to coordinate effort and communicate well with
others. (c; p.26; Moderate; Concept Q)

8. Which of the following is true about how stress and pressure can affect
individual performance?
a. Performance improves only for tasks that require high motivation.
b. Performance on a well-learned task improves.
c. Performance on a novel task improves.
d. Stress never enhances performance.
(b; p.27; Moderate; Concept Q)

9. Which of the following situations demonstrates the best example of social facilitation?
a. Mary, who is a new member of the ballet class, is asked to demonstrate a step
sequence for the senior members of the company. Mary is concerned that her
technique will not be up to par with the rest of the team.
b. John is an excellent lead dancer, and when learning a new routine, loses track
of time because he is so engaged in his task.
c. Sonya is an up and coming dancer, and her teacher puts quite a bit of pressure on
her to perform perfectly. In her dance recital, despite weeks of rehearsals,
Sonya’s mind goes blank, and she can’t remember her routine.
d. Julia is a strong dancer, and when asked to demonstrate her solo to a room full of
classmates, her performance is more energetic, and her leaps are higher.
(d; p. 28-29; Moderate; Critical thinking Q; Reflective thinking skills)

10. When in the psychologic state of “Flow”, which of the following is the most true?
a. A person is keenly aware of the time they are spending on the task at hand.
b. For the individual, the process of engaging in the task is its own reinforcement.
c. A person is intimidated by the task.
d. A person is extremely relaxed, and very comfortable with the task at hand.
(b; p. 29; Moderate; Concept Q)

Copyright © 2014 Pearson Education Inc.

 4

11. Regarding Csikszentmihalyi’s model of Flow, when a person is very low in skill ability, and
the task is high in complexity, what emotional state might this person experience?
a. Control
b. Flow
c. Anxiety
d. Inspiration
(c; p.29; Moderate; Concept Q)

12. The belief that a group has in themselves, or their group potency, a significant
predictor of actual performance. This “thinking we can”, contributes to group
performance more than the .
a. team norms
b. diversity of team members
c. pure cognitive abilities of the team
d. individual, positive illusion biases
(c;p.30; Moderate; Concept Q)

13. The Kohler Effect refers to the observation that:

a. members work harder in a team than they do alone under some conditions.
b. members don’t work as hard in a team as they do alone under some conditions.
c. people work less hard in smaller groups than they do in larger groups.
d. people work harder when they are in a flow state.
(a; p. 30-31; Easy; Concept Q )

14. The social loafing effect refers to the tendency for:

a. people in teams to let others make mistakes instead of telling them what to do.
b. teams to take longer to complete a task than individuals.
c. teams to be more creative than individuals, but experience more conflict.
d. people not to work as hard in teams as they would if they were working individually.
(d; p.31; Easy; Concept Q )

15. In a team, a person’s efforts are less identifiable than when that person
works independently. Because the person’s efforts are less identifiable, in
extreme circumstances this can lead to _.
a. relational loss – or when an employee perceives that support is less available as
team size increases.
b. choking under pressure – a person’s performance declines despite incentives for
optimal performance.
c. a positive illusion bias – or unwarranted beliefs in one’s own superiority.
d. deindividuation – a psychological state in which a person does not feel
individual responsibility.
(d; p. 33; Challenging; Concept Q)

16. If you detect a free rider on your team, the best way to remedy the situation is to:
a. stop carpooling with members of the team.
b. increase the identifiability of that person’s work products through performance
reviews.

Copyright © 2014 Pearson Education Inc.

 5

c. increase the size of the team.

d. decrease the difficulty of the team task.
(b; p. 34; Moderate; Concept Q)

17. When the least capable member of a team feels particularly indispensable for group
success, the entire group works harder to achieve their goals. This effect is best termed:
a. team identifiability.
b. positive illusion bias.
c. social striving effect.
d. relational loss.
(c; p.34; Moderate; Concept Q)

18. Which of the following actions by the team or their leadership can result in reduced
team performance?
a. The team leader promotes an intrinsically interesting or challenging project.
b. The team leader rewards a team member with a clock for his or her hours of
overtime spent in the service of a team’s project.
c. The team shares, and mutually sets, their own performance goals.
d. Team leaders increase team size so that more employees get an opportunity to
contribute to the project.
(d; p. 34-37; Moderate; Concept Q; Analytic skills)

19. The positive illusion bias refers to:

a. people who believe themselves to be superior and more talented than others on their
team.
b. people who work harder for the team hoping to improve the overall team’s reputation
within the larger organizational context.
c. managers who convey a positive attitude in order to positively influence their team’s
group mood.
d. a team member who has positive news to share about the group’s task in hopes
that it will spur morale and increase productivity.
(a; p. 35; Easy; Concept Q; Ethical understanding and reasoning abilities)

20. The positive illusion bias, or unwarranted beliefs in one’s own superiority, can
wreak havoc in teams. Why?
a. Individuals believe their contributions will not be sufficient to justify their efforts.
b. Individuals with this bias are interested in vastly different team goals than that of
their other teammates.
c. Individuals who see themselves as above average are likely to engage in social
loafing because they have a false sense of the value of their contributions.
d. Individuals with this bias always have a high sense of the Protestant Work
Ethic. (c; p.35; Easy; Concept Q; Ethical understanding and reasoning abilities)

21. As team size gets larger and larger, team members perceive that there is less support
available, and freeriding increases. This experience can lead to:
a. diminished motivation.
b. lower performance.
c. greater cohesion between team members.

Copyright © 2014 Pearson Education Inc.

 6

d. both a and b.
(d; p. 37; Easy; Concept Q)

22. Execution is the ability of teams to communicate effectively and combine their efforts.
All of the following can enhance team execution EXCEPT:
a. training team members together.
b. practice and rehearsal.
c. setting clear performance standards.
d. increasing the size of the team.
(d; p. 37-38; Moderate; Concept Q; Communication abilities)

23. Which of the following performance criteria are used to evaluate the success of a team?
a. Productivity
b. Financial profit
c. Diversity
d. Rewards
(a; p. 39-42;Moderate; Concept Q)

24. The team performance equation attempts to predict the actual productivity of a team. It
states that the AP (actual productivity) of a team equals:
a. the potential productivity of a team, plus team synergies, minus team threats.
b. the potential productivity of a team, plus team culture, minus free-riding.
c. the potential productivity of a team, plus task design, plus team culture.
d. cohesion, plus learning, plus integration.
(a; p. 43, ; Easy; Concept Q)

25. Regarding team performance, leaders can more easily control than .
a. team Integration; team separation
b. performance threats; synergies
c. team cohesion; resources
d. the demands of a task; the process of accomplishing a task
(b; p. 43; Moderate; Concept Q; Communication abilities)

Copyright © 2014 Pearson Education Inc.

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 Pretty Mercedes and Mary, her sister, sang minor melodies in duet
style as I extemporised an obbligato on my violin. They then danced
the Jota Aragonesa and other dances, and little children romped
about and imitated bull-fights, singing wildly all the time.
After the carnival was over my comrade and I strolled about the
sleeping city, and visited the old quarter of alleyways and gloomy
buildings and hidden dens where suspicious characters met and
loose lovers played guitars and mandolines. We watched old priests
shuffling along to visit the sick señores, who had fed on garlic and
walnuts, and lived in Madrid’s East End, but dressed in the blue,
open days in majestic splendour and vivid colour.
We went to the many temples of Madrid. They are seldom silent,
for up their aisles creep gentle Spanish girls, who come in, cross
themselves and kneel in prayer to Jesus and the Holy Virgin. The
earnestness of it all would soften the hardest cynic. Old priests
abound, and revel in the confessions of those innocent girls as they
bow their heads with shame and confess that they have thought
more during the week of Don Juan’s stalwart, lithe figure than of the
Holy Virgin. As they pass one sees them crossing themselves and
murmuring their prayers. At the doors wrinkled old women pester
one with little boxes of wax matches, walnuts and photographs of
Madrid and the Blessed Virgin. If one buys a cent’s worth of
anything from them they follow on for three hundred yards, calling
down the blessing of God, Jesus and the Virgin on one’s head.
At night-time, when the moon is high and the olive-trees and
palms are windless and still, down the white-terraced avenue goes
Don Quixote astride his ass, twirling his moustachios, till far away,
with Sancho Panza by his side, he fades under the moonlit chestnut
groves. From the forests of alleyways steal appealing figures, with
eyes that beg for an admiring glance, and in strange, soft tones wail
of sorrows and no food or place to lay their weary heads. Give them
a coin and pass on, they cross themselves and mention the Holy
Virgin’s name, and you realise there is something wrong with the
world, for the cry of the Virgin’s name sounds sincere. All the cities
have that frail woman begging the world to be her husband,
because she never secured one good man to love her and rear those
bonny boys and girls who wail to be born in the infinite shadows
behind her. It is a sorrow that has even spread across the world and
reached the island tribes of the South Seas.
Standing on the garden roof of our house in Madrid we could see
the country round, a barren country, and looking like the Australian
Never-Never Land in a civilised state. It is dotted with dusty tracks
and old isolated inns; herds of goats and mules fade far across the
tracks, looking like droves of rats in the desert distance.
There are beautiful spots in Madrid, on the banks of the
Manzanares, and firs, beeches and chestnuts shade the waters and
the slopes by the Royal Gardens.
At night I used to lie in my attic room and listen to the
nightingales singing in the chestnut-tree outside my window, its
mate piping back approval from another tree at regular intervals. My
old comrade lay fast asleep on the next trestle bed, for the Spanish
hidalgos gave him cognac, and on the way home from the festival
concerts he would clutch me tightly by the arm, as little Mercedes
and Mary laughed by my side. In the morning he used to say: “Dear
boy, whatever was it that overcame me last night? It’s that wretched
garlic.”
Sometimes when we were short of money we lay on our beds
smoking, and he would tell me of the Siege of Paris, his terrible
experiences there, and how he ate his share of the elephant and lion
steaks from the Zoo. Becoming philosophical, he would tell me of his
boyish aspirations, the happiness he got out of them and the worry
from the events that never happened. I would say: “Supposing we
run right out of money, what about food and a bed?” Then he would
cheer me up by saying: “My dear boy, all’s sure to be well; we are
certain to be somewhere and sleep somewhere whatever happens.”
Then, as was his wont, he would lick his thumb and push the old
cigar stump into his pipe and hum my last melody—a melody that no
publisher would buy—till I, secure in his philosophical comradeship,
fell asleep. He never professed or spoke on religious matters, but
each night he knelt by his bed before he got in and lit his pipe.
We were very happy in the house of Señora Dolores; she treated
us as though we were dear relatives. In her little attic room I spent
the happiest hours of my Continental travels. I lay half the night
reading my beloved Montaigne’s essays. The old French Shakespeare
was my best dead learned friend. If ever I was worried and could
not sleep for thinking I went to my sea-chest and brought him out. I
read some of his essays over twenty times, but they were always
fresh, wise and sincere, and I still read them. In that little room I
also read poetry’s legitimate child, Keats. As my dear comrade slept
on I fell in love with Madeline and roamed with Endymion, Lamia
and Hyperion. The nightingale singing outside
“Charm’d magic casements, opening on the foam
Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn”

as the moonlight glimmered through my little room. I have read

somewhere that Keats was earthly. I think if he had lived his intense
genius would have fought for the sorrows of humanity, and his
marvellous mind made literature and our country even better than it
is. It may be centuries before earth, capable of bringing forth such
spiritual flowers as his earthliness did, will be born again.
Poor little Mercedes! She crossed herself and murmured the Holy
Virgin’s name many times as we bade her and her sister good-bye,
and I thought of Madeline, and felt sad that the days of gallant
knights and amorous warriors were gone for ever. I can still see their
eyes shining through sorrow as we said farewell; even the old
mother’s wrinkled face blushed as we kissed the three.
We went from Madrid to Valencia, where we stayed for three
weeks, and then left by boat for Marseilles, and then on to Nice, and
finally to Genoa. My comrade was the happiest of men as he
tramped beside me; he loved to carry my violin. We started to write
an opera together, entitled The Siege of Paris. He was delighted as
he gave me thrilling, realistic details of all he had witnessed. I tried
to place them in lyrical form and wrote suitable melodies round the
tragic events. He knew as much about authorship as I did, but I
believe, with the help of his clever head and earnestness, we should
have amply made up for our artistic deficiencies and lack of literary
method.
The manuscript still remains unfinished, as we left it, for not long
after he ceased singing my songs. The brief sunlight between the
workhouse and the grave faded and disappeared. When I turned
away from his last resting-place I was the only mourner, and as I
went away into our mysterious world once more I felt very lonely.
So end the intimate reminiscences of my wanderings, most of
them experiences up to my twenty-second birthday. Whether I have
succeeded in giving the reader an insight into the personality of the
writer, such a glimpse as an autobiography is supposed to give, I do
not know. Personally, I think it is a hard thing to do in a thorough
sense, especially for a vagabond at heart. Each individual is a
multitude of struggling ancestral strains, and real active life is
manifested in the fight, the fierce hunt to find ourselves; which we
can never do, for we die every moment that we live. So all we can
attempt in a book is to tell truthfully those things that impressed us
deeply at different periods of our life, so deeply that they still remain
imprinted on the mind. Also to tell of our experiences for better or
worse in this life of ours, where one footstep taken out of the track
that we have known and write about would have altered the whole
book of our life to another colour.
 CHAPTER XXII

I arrive at the Organization—Bones and his Officials—Mabau, the Maid—Chief

Kaifa—Mabau in trouble—I advise her—Thakambau’s Harem—Chief Kaifa on
Christianity—Enoch—Escaped Convicts—Music—Witchcraft—The Hermit
Missionary

... While sweetly some

Play on soft flutes and lyres, I, by gum!
Beat with delight the big barbarian drum
Before this drama of the great Limelight
Of stars—and dancing shadows infinite.

T HE best part of truth is hidden in the heart of humanity. How

different is that which we reveal from that which we think of in
silence. Our outward demeanour is civilisation; our hidden inward
cravings are barbarism. To some extent these pages will deal with
the savage instincts of the natives of tropical isles, and with men
who have found refuge in those lands far from the cities of the
Western world.
To tell you of the semi-heathen is much akin to telling you of
ourselves, for are not the barbarian instincts which we all have
within us our own tiny, savage, dusky children? We chide them for
their waywardness, but do we not encourage them in secret, as the
savage outwardly does, expressing joyously that which we are
ashamed of? One has the virtue of truth and the other of polished
deceit. Notwithstanding this, I think civilisation the best of all
possible things. Truly, however, civilisation is built on a quicksand,
and now that the Fijian forest battles and cannibalistic feasts have
become fierce and gruesome history the great tribalistic clash of
nations, in full swing as I write, reveals more than words the
relentless link that binds white and brown men together.
Once when I was wandering in the Marquesan Group I suddenly
came across the ruins of an old cannibalistic amphitheatre standing
lonely by the forest palms. The stone cooling-shelves, whereon once
lay the dead men and women in hot weather, were still intact, but
thickly overgrown with moss and sheltered by bamboos; the festival
arena and its surroundings of artistic savagery were all gone; the
barbarian log walls had fallen. Wild tropical vines, smothered with
wild flowers, thickly covered all that tomb-like place, where savages
once ate their foes and whirled in the cannibalistic dance, revealing
the shapes of the stone edifice, the pae-pae,[15] the turrets and log
walls. The savage tribes with their sighs and laughter lay dead, silent
dust in the forest hard by. I looked up through that amphitheatre-
shaped growth. It was night; I saw the stars glimmering through the
dark palms as the trade wind stirred them. Now I think those
vanished walls were as civilisation, and the green clinging boughs
remaining and revealing the amphitheatre’s shape sad humanity
clinging to the best it has left.
15. Altar.
The simile may not be perfect, but neither is anything that is
human. But I must ramble on my way, for I am now well on the road
to my reminiscences of Fiji.
Years ago, just off the Rewa river, which is navigable fifty or sixty
miles inland, there was a wooden shanty. It had two compartments;
the walls were made of coco-palm stems tied strongly together with
wild hemp. Situated at a lonely spot, surrounded by primeval
vegetation, coco-palms, backa-trees and wild, tropical, twining vines,
it was eminently suitable for the purpose for which it was used, for
in its snug rooms lived the men who were members of the Charity
Organization of the South Seas! The officials did not run the place
on Western lines, for it was a true home for the fallen: no questions
were asked when suddenly the hunted, haggard, unshaved face
appeared; to be hunted was a sufficient reference to enable the
applicant to be at once enrolled as a member. Twelve fierce-eyed,
rough-looking men, attired in big-brimmed hats and belted trousers,
would greet the new arrival, and with the instinct of bloodhounds
stare, and reckon up the new visitor’s pedigree. If he looked
sufficiently villainous and haggard, and pathetically told the woe of
some criminal ambition that had been frustrated by the vigilant eye
of civilisation, he was immediately given the first grade diploma, a
tin mug of the best Fijian rum! If he still possessed any part of the
spoil he could have an extra mugful, for the Organization was not a
rich one. A little off-side room was artistically arranged; a small
looking-glass, brush and comb, and all those things that tell of
gentleness and frailness completed its furniture. There it was, silent,
clean, tenantless and ready, for often from other lands, with the
spoil, the missing man would arrive with the cause of his downfall
weeping beside him, and in there she slept!
No one could tell the individual histories of these men. It will be
sufficient to say that they were there.
Ere I proceed I must tell you that when I speak of the
Organization’s whereabouts I mislead you in the name only; the true
vicinity characteristically resembles my description. It is obvious that
to be faithful to those who befriended me I must be secretive in
some of the details which tell of this isle of the South Seas, where
men sought, and probably still seek, a harbour of refuge safe from
the stern law of civilised cities. To-day this institution exists and still
carries on its varied work of extreme humanity. The low-roofed den,
the old bench surrounded by the swarthy, unshaved faces of the
secretive crew, like bending shadows in tobacco smoke, breathing
oaths as the cards are shuffled, has disappeared; but still the game
is carried on, though in more magnificent style, for as the cities rise
the aristocracy of crime fortifies itself, becoming more guarded and
respectable in outward appearance. Be assured that I dip my pen in
stern experience for that which I tell you.
When you see these headlines in your daily paper, “Bank Manager
Disappears. Officials in the Dock”, “Mayor and Vicar Missing,” be sure
that the head of the Charity Organization of the South Seas has read
the Colonial cable in The Marquesa News or Apia Times, and has
rubbed his hands with delighted expectation, and that his agents are
watching at the warden gates of the high sea ports of the tropic
world. Forest lands, caves and mountain fastnesses and unknown
isles of security are fast disappearing from the world as it becomes
polite.
Where the bokai feast roared and revelled, and the Fijian war
dancers in the moonlight of other years whirled, in bloodthirsty
revelry, by the Rewa river, now rise the church spires! Where the
ambushed tribe once watched from the jungle with gleaming eyes
pass austere university men clad in gowns, with Bibles in their
hands, to lecture on Christianity to open-mouthed natives. So things
have changed, and the heathenish creeds of the old days faded, and
it is my wish to give you one glimpse of that which has been.
It was my lot to stay in the Organization I speak of. A mile off was
a small native village, where Mabau, a Fijian maid who helped
Bones, the Organization overseer, to keep the rooms clean and tidy,
lived. Bones was the descendant of one of those old Botany Bay
convicts who, escaping in a boat, put to sea, and eventually drifting
ashore in Fiji, made their homes there, and inculcated in the
islanders’ minds the first contempt for the white race: contempt
which, by an age of vigorous striving, missionaries have at last
removed. Bones told me much of his convict ancestor, who had been
transported from England for stealing a hammer, and so Bones was
born in the South Seas. He had a firm, open face, grey, English eyes
and a Fijian mouth. He was a fairly well-educated man, and though
he looked rough, at heart was kind; he kissed Mabau’s pretty face as
though she were his own child. In fact Bones in every way struck me
as being most suitable for his job of running a South Sea Charity
Organization, which was run upon exactly opposite lines to the
charity organizations of the Western seas, where the officials have
stony eyes and steel-trap mouths. As I have told you, Bones had
neither; and as I sat by him and a strange bird in the coco-tree sang
to the sunset, I felt drawn to him, and told him more than I would
tell most men. It was a beautiful night; most of Bones’s friends were
away, some at work and some at sea on trading schooners. Bones
played the banjo and I the fiddle, and after indulging in some
European and native folk-songs he lit his pipe and I strolled off
under the palms.
It was on this night that I met Mabau again. Now Mabau was a
Fijian maid of rare beauty. She had shining dark eyes and a thick
mop of hair; the graceful curves of her bare brown body as she
glided ’neath the sunlit palms made many Fijian youths gaze
enviously upon her. The Chief Kaifa, her father, sat by his hut door;
he had been one of the high chiefs of Thakambau, the last of the
Fijian kings. Kaifa was a majestic-looking man; in spite of his thick
lips he had fine features, with earnest eyes, and was straight-figured
as a coco-palm. As he sat there, dressed in his native sulu, he smiled
as I spoke to his daughter Mabau. I knew more of her doings than
he thought. She was a true daughter of Eve, for her glance gave no
hint whatever that we had met before.
For in my forest wanderings, about two days before the evening I
have mentioned, I had met Mabau. She did not know at first that I
had perceived her in a lonely spot. She knelt on her knees before a
rotting, cast-off wooden idol. Sunset had fired with red and gold the
tops of the coco-palms and forest trees; overhead a few birds were
still whistling. As I approached, and the dead scrub cracked beneath
my feet, the heathen-hearted little maid looked hastily over her bare
shoulder and, seeing me, arose swiftly, as though for flight. My voice
must have had a note in it that appealed to and reassured the guilty
forest child, for I called softly, and then smiled to let her know that
from me no harm should befall her. “Why do you pray to that
wooden thing?” I said, and then I gave the monstrous effigy a kick.
With a frightened sigh she looked up at me and said: “O Papalangi, I
love Vituo the half-caste.” Then with a blush she told me all, and it
seemed that the soul of innocence peered through her eyes and
asked for mercy as she looked down at herself and then up to me
again, one hand resting on her brown breast. I gazed silently and
knew all. The perfidious Vituo had stolen her heart.
 “Me killee Vituo; your white God no help me, will he?” she said. I
gazed awhile and said: “Yes, He will, Mabau.” I would not have told
this thundering lie but for the fact that her appealing eyes awoke the
best that was in me, and it was my earnest wish to attempt to stay
her from inflicting any vengeance on her sinful lover which might
bring sorrow to her afterwards.
Encouraged by my kindness, and misunderstanding my gestures
as I endeavoured to explain that she should pray to the Christian
God instead of to the gods of her fathers, she suddenly lifted her
arms and started to chant into the wooden ears of the old idol again.
On her knees she went, swaying her body and arms gently all the
while in the mystic, Mebete charms. She sang on earnestly, and I
gazed, astonished to see the heathen age before my eyes and to
feel my ear-drums vibrating to the primeval lore of the South Seas.
Through the forest boughs just overhead crept the lingering rays of
the dying sunset, and two golden streaks fell slantwise over the
praying maid’s brown body, glimmering in her thick dark hair as her
head moved to and fro while she chanted her despair.
“Mabau,” I said, “where does Vituo live? Why not go and find him,
tell him of your love and offer your forgiveness; he will doubtless
take you to his arms.” In truth I felt this might be, for she was a
comely and pretty maid. At my saying this she answered in this
wise: “O white mans, I long die and go to Nedengi, or Mburanto the
great goddess, who love deceived maids and make gods of children.”
Then, with a fierce look on her dark face, and with heaving bosom,
she continued: “Mburanto will blow the breath of the big wind that
will kill him, the wicked Vituo, and then him once dead will love me
again, for good is his soul, though his body is whitish and wicked.” I
saw the depth of her love flame in her eyes, and I answered:
“Mabau, go home, and I will pray to the white God for you, and will
see what can be done to bring this treacherous Vituo back to you
again.” At this, with delight, she rose to her feet, her eyes and face
shining and expressing pleasure at my promise; her sulu-cloth of
woven coco-nut fibre revealed her trembling thighs as, with the
impulsiveness of the Fijian temperament, she started to sing and do
the equivalent of a step-dance.
As I stood there, and the shadows of night thickened, I heard a
voice, and Mr Bones suddenly stepped from a clump of tall fern
growth into the clearing where we stood. “What’s up?” he said, and
I knew then that he had been watching the whole performance.
Mabau, who knew him well, started off, with feminine vivacity, to tell
him all her trouble. He knew her language, and so she was able
swiftly to tell her tale. Now Bones, as I have said before, was a
decent fellow, and he listened attentively all the while that she
spoke. Then he turned towards me and said: “Vituo is a treacherous
skunk, and if he plays her false I will see to it that he gets his
deserts. Go home, Mabau, for old Kaifa will be suspicious of your
being out this late hour.” Off she went, and I had not seen her again
till this meeting by her parent Kaifa’s home, when I digressed to tell
you that, notwithstanding her greeting me as though I were a
stranger, nevertheless all that I have told you had happened
between us.
The chief, as I said, gave me a friendly greeting. I had seen him
once before, when he had called at Bones’s homestead and
borrowed a mugful of rum. He was a genuine survival of the old
cannibalistic days: though he had embraced Christianity as best
calculated to serve his interests and requirements, for the Protestant
and Roman Catholic ecclesiastics were very kind to him—he had
embraced both the creeds—he still, deep in his heart, clung
tenaciously to old memories and the heathen mythologies of his
tribal ancestors.
By his side sat Mabau, busily weaving a new fringed sulu gown,
with varied patterns decorating its scantiness; for it was the Fiji
fashion to reveal as much as possible of the maid without her being
accused of being absolutely nude. His only surviving wife was a full-
blooded Fijian, and as I sat by his side she squatted on her
haunches, busily blowing, with her thick-lipped mouth, the embers
of a tiny fire that flickered into a thousand stars, to be scattered by
her breath, as the evening meal spluttered.
Chief Kaifa could speak excellent English, and as I stayed on, and
the hour became late, he told me many things of the old days, of
dark beliefs and also of the mighty cannibalistic warrior, Thakambau.
As he spoke, and the moon rose and lit the forest, his eyes
brightened as the old splendour thrilled him, and Mabau, who sat by
us alone, for the old wife had gone to bed in the hut near by, rested
her chin on her hand and looked up with sparkling eyes, listening
eagerly, and I saw who encouraged her and why she had prayed so
earnestly to the old forest idol.
“O white mans,” he said, lifting his dusky arms as he spoke, “the
old gods watch me to-night, and when I pass into shadow-land I
shall be great chief, for am I not still faithful to them? Do I not cling
to those who watched over my birth and gave me life?” As he spoke
a strange bird screamed afar off in the forest palms, and with his
dark finger to his lips he said: “Woi! Vanaka! the dead speak! and
they who were unfaithful to men and maids are being punished by
the gods”; for ere he finished many screams came to our ears, as a
flock of migrating wings flapped under the moon that was right
overhead.
Mabau, who had heard this, clapped her hands with delight, and I
knew then that she had but little faith in Vituo’s promises; for I
understood from Bones that he had seen Vituo, and he had pledged
his faithfulness to poor Mabau. I say “poor Mabau” because this is
no romance that I tell you of, but simply an incident in the sad
drama of life that came about through Vituo’s unfaithfulness.
Much that Chief Kaifa told me that night, and on following nights
that I spent in his interesting company, still lives vividly in my
memory, and I think it will be interesting to tell here some things I
heard concerning the monstrous deeds of Thakambau ere the awful
royal cannibal embraced Christianity.
 It appeared that Thakambau had six Fijian maids, who were kept
in the royal huts, sheltered and closely guarded by his high chiefs;
and though the missionaries had landed in the Fijian Group, and had
even made homes on the isle, he managed to keep all that which
the old chief told me a close secret. For some time these six maids
formed his harem, and they were proud of the royal favour. In time
two of them became mothers, and when the babies were six months
old the high chiefs came in the dead of night and took them away.
As time wore on, and Thakambau sickened of the secret tribal
harem, the mothers disappeared one by one also—only a scream
disturbed the forest silence. Then the bokai ovens, wherein the dead
were roasted, were made hot, and great were the rejoicings of the
cannibalistic natives and the tribal grandees who were favoured by
being admitted and presented at the Court functions.
At last of the six erstwhile maids two only were left, and one night
they too disappeared and ceased to weep, and the harem huts were
silent.
Nedengi, the great Fiji god, blessed all those who had joined in
the grand festival whereat the maids had been sacrificed; and as the
assembled tribe sat in the terrible forest arena, drinking kava and
gorging the dead, the Mebete spirits could be heard running, as their
shadow-feet sped across the midnight moonlit forest that
surrounded the bokai ovens; and the cannibals looked affrighted
over their shoulders as they heard the wailing cries of the souls of
the dead mothers and maids whom they were eating being pursued
by the souls of dead warriors and lustful old gods, who hungered
after the shadows of beautiful dead women!
“How terrible!” I suddenly gasped, being unable to control my
utterance as the old chief told me these things. Quickly he looked up
at me, and swiftly I recognised my mistake, for he was very proud of
his dead king and all the horror I have told you. Continuing, I said:
“Thakambau was a great warrior, and the mighty Nedengi approved
of his doings, and sanctioned them, as the white God does ours.”
 Though I said that, the old fellow seemed to understand my
feelings, and looking at me half kindly and half fiercely, said:
“Nedengi did not sacrifice his own son! Nor does he send the
helpless, blind souls of his children to the bokai ovens of hell fires to
burn in agony for eternity; nor did he hide in the dark of ages. Why
did your mighty one God not come before? Why did He send you
cursed whites to our isles to shout lies, ravish our maids and steal
our lands? Wao! Wao! Why smash our idols? Show me this great
white God! Where, where is this Thing you prate about? Where?”
Saying this, he lifted his eyes to the skies, and so vehemently did he
rattle on, and so many things did he say that smacked of the truth,
that for a moment I hung my head and felt as though I were the
heathen and he the Christian.
Bidding the fierce old fellow good-night, I went swiftly across the
flats, crept into the Home of the Fallen, by Rewa river, and slept.
It was the next day that I met the treacherous Vituo. Bones
introduced me to him, and as I nodded my friend gave me a wink
and so I assumed more politeness. I was much surprised by Vituo’s
appearance, for though he was a half-caste his complexion was
almost European. Certainly he was of a type which would appear
handsome to Fijian womenkind, and from his manner I saw at a
glance that he was a mixture of the swashbuckler and cavalier. I
pitied little Mabau exceedingly, for she would, night after night,
come over to see us, and I knew that she came full of hope that she
might meet Vituo, who often came down the Rewa to help the
traders, and to take up cargoes of copra and many other things that
grew on the plantations which were cultivated and toiled over by the
natives.
I stayed with Bones for some days; he was extremely kind to me,
and I was glad of the opportunity of getting a rest, and, moreover,
the men who lived with him were strange characters and extremely
interesting. Often new arrivals came, some with heavy beards and
some clean shaven, ostensibly for the purpose of disguise.
 One old man, whose name was Enoch, was a quaint old chap and
fondly loved rum. I do not know what he had done in his native land
—which I believe was Australia—but at night he would shout in his
sleep and, suddenly awaking, sit up and gasp, and gaze with relief
on the bunks around him, wherein slept the weary heads of the
fallen. Now Enoch was very artful, for he found out that I was the
rum-keeper and so it was my duty to share out, and night after night
I was obliged to get out of my bed and give him tots of rum to allay
the awful pain which a toothache was giving him. For several nights
this kind of thing went on. I advised him at length to go to Suva and
get the offensive molar pulled out, but no, he would not hear of it.
At last, after a wretched week of nights disturbed by his groans and
appeals for rum, I happened to tell him a joke, and as he opened his
mouth wide with laughter I saw to my disgust that he was toothless!
Often I went out into the forest and, placing my music in the fork
of a tree, stood and practised my violin. The native children would
hear, and come peeping through the tall fern and grass to listen.
They became my little friends. I taught them to dance around me,
and they screamed with delight!
Several times Mabau came to see us, but Vituo did not keep his
promises. She would stand at the Organization door for hours
watching the sunset fade over the hills, and then with staring eyes
look down the long white track, where once he had so eagerly come
singing, to fall into her arms. Bones and I, and even old Enoch,
would strive to cheer her up. I used to play the violin and get her to
sing with her soft, plaintive voice some of the lotu hymns, and so in
this way divert her mind from thinking of her faithless lover. For, to
tell the truth, Vituo was now only interested in a white woman who
was staying at Suva. Bones knew of this, and told me all about it,
and so we all felt deeply sorry for Mabau. In my heart I hated the
treacherous half-caste for his heartless behaviour. Time was going
on, and Mabau’s open disgrace fast approaching, and, as Bones said,
it would not be well for her, or Vituo either, when the truth was out.
The old chief, her father, still had a huge war-club which was the
equivalent of Fijian law, and there was no telling what might happen
when her condition was no longer a secret. Poor Mabau! I still
remember her melancholy as I made her sing while I played the low
notes on the violin, for she could follow easily the chords on the G
string, but as the bow travelled up the scale to the higher notes her
ear seemed to fail her. It was interesting to listen to her wild voice,
which so easily sang melodies in the minor key, though as soon as I
played in the major key her voice seemed to grip hold of the notes
and slowly drift the strain from the major to the minor.
One night we were suddenly surprised by one of our companions
appearing at the Organization door with two new members. They
were dark-looking men; one was extremely handsome and very
polite, indeed almost courtly in his salutations as he gently brushed
the mug’s rim and swallowed the proffered rum. Enoch, Mabau and
I, sitting on our tubs, watched them intently as they stood side by
side and spoke in broken English to Bones, who seemed quite
satisfied with their credentials, for they were escaped convicts from
Numea. They were unshaved and very disreputable-looking, but
after a wash, shave and brush-up were considerably changed for the
better, and I discovered that they were as gentle and intelligent as
they looked. Reviere, the younger—that was not his real name—had,
in a fit of jealousy, shot a rival in Paris, and so had been transported
to New Caledonia, the French penal settlement, from where convicts
often escaped to live exiled lives in the islands or Australian cities.
Reviere fell in love with Mabau. He and I became very good
friends, and though I told him of Vituo and all the trouble, still he
gazed upon Mabau as she softly sang with eyes that seemed never
to tire of gazing in her direction.
Reviere had been exiled in a convict prison for over five years, and
Mabau being the first woman whom he had spoken to since he
escaped from incarceration, his infatuation for the Fijian maid was
not so surprising as it would have been under normal circumstances.
Alas, though Mabau approved of his tenderness to her, and seemed
somewhat flattered at his admiring gaze, she did not encourage him;
for, notwithstanding the undress costume of the islanders and the
looseness of the sexes in the native villages, Fijian maids were as
modest as, and if anything more faithful to their lovers than, the
maids of civilised lands sometimes are.

Dart Valley, Lake Wakatipu, N.Z.

For two nights Mabau disappeared, and Bones being away on a

trading trip, Reviere and I left the Organization officials playing
dominoes and drinking rum and went off south of the Rewa river
exploring; for we had heard that the natives were having high
sprees inland and that the Meke festival dances were in full swing.
It was nearly dusk as we wandered along by the tropical palms
and fern that grew thickly by the tiny track which we followed. Going
across a pine-apple plantation we once more got on to the native
road, and before the stars in heaven were at their brightest we
emerged from the thick bush growth and entered a clearing that
extended to the native village homesteads that stood under the
palms and banyans across the flat.
It was a wonderful sight that appeared before us; for the old
chieftains, and native women also, were dressed in war costume,
their bodies swathed in bandages of grass and flowers, and as they
danced wildly they made the scene impressively weird. The general
musical effect sounded like a Wagnerian orchestra being played out
of tempo and tune, but the legendary atmosphere was perfect. It
also possessed the barbarian note of Wagnerian music, which so
wonderfully expresses the German nature and shows that Wagner
was a genius for true expression and anticipation.
The moon came up and intensified the barbaric atmosphere that
pervaded the excited village. From the hut doors peeped the tiny
dark faces of the native children, who applauded with vigour the
escapades of their old grandmother or grandfather, who, back once
again in the revived memories of heathen days, threw their skinny
legs skyward and did many grotesque movements that seemed
impossible to old age and the stern decorum which those little
children had erstwhile been used to from their august parents.
Round the space, to the primitive music of thumped wooden drums
(lais) and the hooting of bamboo reeds, they whirled; and then
suddenly the vigorous antics would cease and all would start walking
round in a circle, as the maids, almost nude, except for a blossom or
a little grass tied about them, joined in, opened their thick-lipped
mouths in unison and chanted some old strain that smacked more of
heathenism than of the Christianity which most of them were
supposed to have embraced. Under the coco-palms hard by sat
several old women who dealt in South Sea witchcraft. I never saw
such pathetically hideous old hags as they were. Their faces wrinkled
up to a breathing-map of sin and vice as they put their fingers to
their shrivelled lips and warned the innocent girls of sorrows to
come, foretelling dire disaster, or the reverse, to those who appealed
to them for prophecies.
 Many of the maidens from the surrounding villages came running
up the bush track and delightedly joined in the circling ring of
dancers. A few of the latter, who belonged to the low-caste toiling
natives, availed themselves of the opportunity to show their figures
off, and though the majority of the dancers were innocent enough,
in their way, these looser ones swayed about and went through
preposterous antics, endeavouring to please the eyes of the semi-
savage native men who squatted round as sightseers. Great was
their applause at frequent intervals, and deep the pleasure of those
women who eagerly sought to please the eyes of prospective
husbands.
Reviere and I stood watching this scene; neither of us spoke, so
deeply were we interested in all about us. Then I touched Reviere,
and told him to look behind him; there sat Mabau at the feet of a
villainous-looking old witch who, responding to her pleadings, was
doubtless telling Mabau how to win back Vituo’s love. There she sat,
that artless, deceived maid, rubbing together the magic sticks and
repeating word for word all that the old witch told her. It sounded in
this wise: “O wao, we wao, wai wai, O mio mio, mio mi”; and so on,
over and over again. Poor little Mabau, how fast she rubbed the
magic sticks as, unperceived, Reviere and I watched her from the
shadows and the old crony picked her two black front teeth with a
bone skewer and thought over some new phrase for Mabau and the
other maids to repeat after her. Many maids appealed to her and
rubbed the sticks, some crossways and some downways, as they
thought of the bonny promised babies that would be theirs. Two
ugly old divorced wives, who had been foretold new husbands and
children if they rubbed the magic sticks the right way, rubbed and
rubbed so hard that their dark bodies were steaming with
perspiration in the moonlight!
Neither of us approached Mabau as we watched; we saw why she
had been absent from us for two nights. We had no doubt that each
night she had sat at the black crone’s feet, listening to her
prophecies and doing all she told her to do with those bits of stick,
while Vituo, away in Suva, made love to the young white woman and
thought no more of Mabau, who was to bring down vengeance on
his head for his sins.
Next night Mabau watched at the trysting-place for the old witch’s
prophecies to be fulfilled, but found that Vituo did not come as had
been foretold, so as she knew of an old and lonely missionary who
lived some eight miles from the spot where Reviere and I witnessed
the native fête, she told us that she would go and visit the good
white man and see if he could help her in her sorrow. Finding out
from Bones where the recluse lived, I, being deeply interested, went
off the following afternoon to see him. After four hours’ hard walking
I inquired from some natives, and following a track which was thickly
covered with thangi-thangi and drala growth, arrived at Naraundrau,
which was situated south-east of the Rewa river and not far from the
seashore. There in a secluded spot close by a stream was a small,
neatly thatched homestead. As I approached all seemed silent,
deserted and overgrown; the trees that shaded the hut-like home
were heavy with thick, human-hand-shaped leaves, which intensified
the gloom and isolation. I coughed purposely; the door opened, and
there, framed in the doorway, stood a tall, stooping, grey-bearded
man of about seventy or seventy-five years of age.
“Welcome, my son,” he said as I introduced myself, and he noticed
that I was tired, for the heat of the sun had been terrific and I was
parched with thirst. I had brought my violin with me for
companionship and safety; though I had great faith in the
Organization officials, I did not wish to tempt their integrity by
leaving my instrument behind.
 CHAPTER XXIII

Father Anster—Fijian Legendary Lore—Forest Graves—The Blind Chief—Mythology

and Love-making—Falling Stars—The Change—A Drove of Native Children—The
Village Missionary—A Native Supper—An Old Chief’s Reminiscences—Fijian
Poets and Musicians—A Tribute to the Humbug of Civilisation

I SAT and gazed round that little lonely homestead by the shore-
side at Naraundrau. The scent of the jungle blooms and dead
grass crept into my nostrils as soft winds came up from the sea,
blew in at the small doorway and fell asleep in the leafy hollows.
Opposite the doorway, by his broken coloured-glass window, sat the
missionary to whom Mabau had appealed. He had already given her
his advice.
He was a venerable-looking old man, with earnest, sunken grey
eyes. As his aged, bearded lips moved, and he spoke in a sensitive,
musical voice, I at once felt a liking for him, and I seemed to be
back in the days of an age that had long since passed away. For this
lonely old missionary was the sole survivor of the first white men
who had exiled themselves from their native lands with the one
intense motive only in their hearts—to endeavour to preach the word
of Christ and better the conditions of heathen lands. No ambition in
his mind had craved for recognition; he had done his day’s work,
and there, weighed down with years, he waited sadly, yet patiently,
the last act of life’s drama, the call of his Creator, to whose service
he had devoted his earnest existence. He died, quite unknown to
men on earth, for if men do not strive for fame it seldom will come
to them, unless they do not deserve it.
 “My son, what brings you this way?” he said, and his grey eyes
gazed kindly at me.
“Father,” I said respectfully, “I heard of you from Mabau, the
native girl who sorrows over her faithless lover, and since hearing of
you it has been my wish to meet you, and here I am.”
Hearing my answer, the old man looked intently at me, and to my
great pleasure I saw that I had impressed him favourably. “Art thou
hungry, lad?” he said. “No, not hungry, but I am exceedingly thirsty,
Father,” I answered; and at that he at once brought out, from a little
wooden cupboard by his side two coco-nuts, and with trembling
fingers pierced the holes with a screw. Very thankful I was as I
drank off a tin pannikin full to the brim of the refreshing fruit milk.
After that I felt much refreshed and more at my ease, as I talked to
my host.
At his bidding I took my violin from its case and played the Ah che
la morte from Il Trovatore to him. As the strain died away, and
silently I laid the fiddle down, he crossed his hands over his breast
and sat in the gloom, for night was falling fast. He looked like an old,
grey-bearded apostle carved in stone as he sat there.
“My son, thou playest well, and I am thankful for thy visit,” he
murmured; and I was touched and highly pleased, for deep in my
heart I suddenly felt a tenderness for the lonely old missionary. I
saw by the way he crossed his hands that he was a Roman Catholic.
I am a Protestant by birthright, but his sincerity made me feel more
attached to his denomination than my own.
As night fell and the stars came out he became more talkative and
unburdened himself to me, a fact which I always remember with
pride, for he would not have done so if he had not felt instinctively
that my heart was in sympathy with his.
Rising and lighting an old oil lamp, he stood it on the window-
shelf, and its faint flicker lit up his room. In the corner was a
sleeping-mat, for he slept on the floor in native fashion. His furniture
consisted of two wooden stools, a small bench table and a few
cooking utensils. Outside the door in a cage was a large grey parrot;
it looked as old as its master, was almost featherless and seldom
spoke. But now and again it would gaze sideways at me and without
opening its tuneless beak say in a sepulchral voice, “Good-bye,
good-bye,” as though it were jealous of my conversation with its
lonely master. It was a wise old bird, mistrusted strangers and
realised that old age could be tempted and led away from old
friendships by the voice of youth.
As we sat there together the moon came out and shone brilliantly
over the sea, outdoing the dimness of his oil lamp; so brightly did it
shine over the palms that one could easily have read ordinary print.
Taking an old flute down, he started to play upon it, and then with
a sigh laid it back on the shelf and asked me if I should care to stay
the night. “Yes,” I immediately answered. We went out and strolled
in the moonlight, and he told me much of Fiji in the old days.
Though he was a poor and aged man, with only the moonlit forest
flowers as his friends, flowers that would some day blossom over his
fast-dissolving dust, the largess of his sincere heart, all that he told
me, has been vast wealth to my memories through the years, and
his dead voice has haunted my dreams at times.
He too told me of Thakambau; he had known him in his worst
days, and spoke with the famous warrior king when he had at
length, after many councils with his chiefs, decided to embrace
Christianity.
As we strolled under the straight-stemmed palms the silvered
moonlit waves splashed over the coral reefs below, and across the
waters, like a weird shadow, passed a canoe filled with singing
natives.
“Who sleeps there?” I asked him as we passed a mound of earth
whereon was a cross half hidden in drala weed. He told me that it
was the grave of a white man who had left a ship at Viti Levu and
had become attached to the wife of a notable chief. The chief
discovered them together by the shore, and after a terrible battle,
the white man with a rifle-butt and the chief with a club, the white
man fell mortally wounded. In the struggle the native wife was shot
dead, and her spirit, the natives say, was carried on wings of fire up
through the trees towards the stars that light the shores of that
heathen land which was ruled by Mburotu. The missionary told me
that he crept through the forest and with his own hands dug a grave
under the pandanus palms for the slain body of the white man, and
night after night he came and prayed fervently over the man of his
race, asking God to forgive and grant to his soul salvation.
I was much impressed as he told me these things, and also by
seeing how, as we walked along, he would tenderly bend and touch
the tall flowers with his lips. “Under them sleeps the child I loved, or
the chief who fell in some bloody tribal fight,” he would say; and he
told me also that often in the Fijian wilds men, women and children
were buried in spots known only to those who loved and buried
them.
That same night as we walked along the narrow track by the
shore-side at Naraundrau the aged missionary took me gently by the
arm and, turning up the inland track, we stood by a native’s conical-
shaped hut. In it sat an old, almost blind chief, the half-brother of
Vakambau, a great warrior who was dead. It appeared that he loved
the missionary, and though he would not give up his heathen faith
had, owing to the supplications of my host, half embraced
Christianity.
It was the habit of the Father to call night after night and pray
with the old heathen chief before he slept. I felt very strange as I
stood watching the white man and the old Fijian kneeling side by
side praying, while three old women squatting in the corner of the
den gazed on silently, as though they were carved stone images.
They were his servants; being of Fijian royal blood, he would not
move himself. Often as he sat there he imperiously pointed to a
stone flask wherein was some yangona,[16] and at once the slaves of
royalty, with machine-like swiftness, filled a stone bowl and held it to
his lips. Suddenly starting up, he rushed to the den door and gazed
up at the trees, shouting, “Wai, wai, taho mi,” then waved his arms,
lifted his chin towards the stars and called to the memory of dead
warriors and comrades dead with heathen gods. As the Pacific wind
sighed softly through the giant backa-trees he bowed his head
reverently, for to him so answered the gods.
16. Native wine made from a root.
I stayed that night with the missionary, and the next day and
night also, and heard many strange things. Beautiful were some of
the legends of the forest children that my host told me. The stars
were the eyes of the fiercer gods, and the falling stars the bright
tears of the powerful Muburto and Nedengi’s warriors. Fijian maidens
and youths prayed to the eyes of shadow-land, and if, as their
impassioned lips met, a star fell and arched over them in the vault of
night, great was their sorrow, for a god had shed a tear over the
grief that would befall the life of the first-born. But if, ere the lovers
said farewell, more stars fell, great was their rejoicing, for it was a
sign that other gods were pleading to the greater god to stay the
evil that was predestined by the first star that burst out of the dark
soul of evil Destiny. So, notwithstanding heathenism and the
gruesome cannibalistic customs of the old times, much innocence
and poetry softened the hearts of the wild native children of those
dim lands. It was a common sight by night in the shade of the coco-
palms to see love-sick maids in the arms of the Fijian youths, gazing
at the skies, yearning for the sight of the vast gods shedding starry
tears on their behalf, and often great was their delight to find the
foretold grief to their first-born overthrown by the power of other
gods. Then the innocent maids gave themselves, body and soul, to
the infatuated, delighted youths, and fell with the falling of the stars!
When the stars on windy nights twinkled fiercely through the wailing
boughs of the bending forest giants, lovers gazed heavenward
anxiously, for to them the glimmering stars were the tiny bright legs
of their unborn children running happily across the fields of paradise.
Often, too, sorrowing mothers would peer up for hours on those
windy, starlit nights, as they watched their dead children’s bright
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